Vol.09 Issue 02 – ’15

EFMD & GMAC will be combining their admissions experience and business school need to launch the Admissions Institute for New Professionals (AINP) Europe. (www.gmac.com/ainpeurope) We will be recruiting admissions professionals, with six to 36 months experience in an admissions function, to be part of the 2016 class. Look out for more details over the next…

What’s the formula for a great business school? Take some high-quality research, add in some exceptional faculty, mix with great international students and wrap in accreditation and rankings. If only it was so easy. For just over a decade CarringtonCrisp has been answering this question for business schools around the world. Market research and intelligence…

Frank Vidal and André Sobczak assess a study by Audencia Nantes that suggests that small companies are ignoring the benefits of corporate responsibility initiatives. Over the last decade, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has moved from being a fad or fashion to a top priority for business leaders across the world. An increasing number of large…

Andrew Rutsch explains how companies can prosper in the digital age. The digital age has arrived. Massive public and private investments into IT infrastructure now allow doing things not possible a few years ago. Positively, entrepreneurs can tap thousands of people to take their new businesses off the ground through crowd funding. Negatively, terrorists can…

Viki Holton and Fiona Dent explain how to introduce change successfully. Change remains one of the most significant contemporary business challenges for organisations, leaders and managers. Recent research by Ashridge Business School in the UK that surveyed leaders in the private, public and higher education sectors indicated that implementing and managing change remains a major…

How RSM business school in the Netherlands is strengthening its links with China by George Bickerstafffe. China was the obvious choice when Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), a leading European business school based in the international port city of Rotterdam, moved to the next strategic step in its international development. Chinese universities and…

Business schools are facing increasing pressures to demonstrate their ‘impact’ on their surroundings and operations. Christophe Lejeune, Julie Davies and Ken Starkey analyse new research into how the impact agenda is affecting schools. Among the many implications for business schools of the 2008 financial crisis was the emergence of the “impact agenda.” At its core…

Despite immense ongoing challenges, Karim Seghir describes how a business school in the Arab region is continuing its quest to make a positive impact on its locality. If the popular uprisings in the Arab region have taught us one thing, it is that in an environment that focuses solely on maximising shareholder value we cannot…

Are we really getting more spiritual? And is this affecting business culture? Chris Baker, Peter Stokes and Jessica Lichy suggest we may be – and it is. In the fields of business organisation and management much has been written and spoken about values and beliefs. However, we find ourselves entering a fresh and novel phase…

Jordi Díaz outlines three key challenges currently faced by established Western business schools. Recently I had the opportunity to take part in three conferences on business education held in three different continents. Several ideas put forward by leading experts in the field made me reflect on the significant role that business schools fulfil today. On…

The education market has never been more buoyant. But that also means more change and new challenges to traditional business schools. If they do not respond, says Richard Taylor, they may face extinction. The world is changing at a faster rate than we have ever witnessed. The education sector is benefiting from increasing advances in…

Business schools face major challenges if they are to profit from the growth of executive education. One way, says Santiago Iniguez, is to produce faculty with diverse and hybrid skills. One of the biggest growth opportunities for business schools is at the same time one of the biggest challenges they face: how best to provide…

Every organisation wants to deliver value. But not all do. Andrew Kakabadse suggests that following the evidence is the success formula. Value delivery has been held as fundamental to the continued success of any corporation. The attention given to continuously enhancing product and service quality, ever-greater team work and collaboration, improved strategy creation, more focused…

Management has served us well. Since the Industrial Revolution it has paved the way for a sustained and accelerating rise in living standards unheard of and unforeseen. But with the ‘digital revolution’, we are entering a new era where the logic of industrial-age organisation has lost its purchase. It is time to reinvent it, says…

Capitalism has not failed nor is it in retreat. It is just an idea. But, argues Malcolm McIntosh, it is an idea, which in its current form, is in real need of being re-thought. In 2012, the UN High Level Report Resilient People, Resilient Planet called for a new international political economy that would include…

Global Focus is the EFMD Business Magazine that provides in-depth analysis and updates on international management development and features topical reports, thought-leadership and insight from leading experts from academia, business schools, companies and consultancies.

EFMD is a global, membership driven organisation, based in Brussels, Belgium with offices in Geneva, Hong Kong, Miami and Prague.
The EFMD network includes nearly 900 institutional members and reaches over 25,000 management development professionals across 88 countries worldwide.